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Bollas Transformational Object PDF
Bollas Transformational Object PDF
Bollas Transformational Object PDF
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when a mother turns the infant on his belly, takes him out of
his crib, diapers him, sits him up in her arms and on her lap,
rocks him, strokes him, kisses him, feeds him, smiles at him,
talks and sings to him, she offers him not only all kinds of
libidinal gratifications but simultaneously stimulates and
prepares the child's sitting, standing, crawling, walking,
talking, and on and on, i.e., the development of functional
ego activity. (1965, p. 37)
14 Winnieott (1963b) terms this comprehensive stantly alters the infant's environment to meet 15
THE SHADOW mother the 'environment' mother because, for his needs. There is no delusion operating in the THE TRANS
OFTHE the infant, she is the total environment. To this I FORMATIONAL
infant's identification of the mother with trans
OBJECT OBJECT
would add that the mother is less significant and formation of being through his symbiotic know
identifiable as an object than as a process that is ing; it is a fact, for she actually transforms his
identified with cumulative internal andexternal tranSl'iliiiiitio.ns. world. In the second place, the infant's own emergent ego capaci
I ~sh-i.o-identify the infal~i';-fi-;~t subjective experience of the ties - of motility, perception, and integration - also transform his
object as a transformational object, and this chapter will address world. The acquisition of language is perhaps the most significant
the trace in adult life of this early relationship. A trans transformation, but learning to handle and to differentiate be
formational object is experientially identified by the infant with tween objects, and to remember objects that are not present, are
[processes that alter self experience. It is an identification that transformative achievements as they result in ego change which
emerges from symbiotic relating, where the first object is 'known' alters the nature of the infant's internal world. It is not surprising
not so much by putting it into an object representation, but as a /
that the infant identifies these ego achievements with the presence
recurrent experience of being - a more existential as opposed to of an object, as the failure of the mother to maintain provision of
representational knowing. As the mother helps to integrate the the facilitating environment, through prolonged absence or bad
infant's being (instinctual, cognitive, affective, environmental), handling, can evoke ego collapse and precipitate psychic pain.
the rhythms of this process - from unintegration(s) to integra With the infant's creation of the transitional object, the trans
;i;;(;j-=--i;;f~-;inth;~t~~-eo f this 'object' relation rather than the formational process is displaced from the mother-environment
Gu~~tie~_~~_~~~~~~~t_as_~blect. (where it originated) into countless subjective-objects, so that the
Not yet fully identified as an other, the mother is experienced transitional phase is heir to the transformational period, as the
as a process of transformation, and this feature of early existence infant evolves from experience of the process to articulation of
lives on in certain forms of object-seeking in adult life, when the the experience. With the transitional object, the infant can play
object is sought for its function as a signifier of transformation. with the illusion of his own omnipotence (lessening the loss of the
Thus, in adult life, the quest is not to possess the object; rather environment-mother with generative and phasic delusions of self
the object is pursued in order to surrender to it as a medium that and-other creation); he can entertain the idea of the object being
alters the self, where the subject-as-supplicant now feels himself got rid of, yet surviving his ruthlessness; and he can find in this
to be the recipient of enviro-somatic caring, identified with meta- transitional experience Jhe ~om of metaph~. What was an
Gorphoses of the self. Since it is an identification that begins be actual process can be displaced into symbolic equations which, if
i~~n.!!flca.!!~_tl_~f
__
relation that~~erges n()t from desire, but. r.r:.()~ ap~~al
------.-
externally (bringing wealth and happiness). above all, ruminate obsessively about the future
Some forms of erotomania may be efforts to establish the other as and bemoan his current 'bad luck'. Every week, without failure,
the transformational obj;ct. he would go home to see his mother. He felt she lived in order to
The search for the perfect crime or the perfect woman is not talk about him and thus he must be seen by her in order to keep
only a quest for an idealized object. It also constitutes some re her content.
cognition in the subject of a deficiency in ego experience. The Reconstruction of the earliest years of his life yielded the fol
search, even though it serves to split the bad self experience from lowing. Peter was born in a working-class home during the war.
the subject's cognitive knowledge, is nonetheless a semiological While his father was defending the country, the home was occu
act that signifies the person's search for a particular object re pied by numerous in-laws. Peter was the first child born in the
lation that is associated with ego transformation and repair of the family and he was lavishly idolized, particularly by his mother
become enchanted by it, and may appear oblivious to the actual patient's identification of the analyst as the transformational ob
content of the interpretation so long as the song of the analytic ject is not dissimilar to the infant's identification of the mother
voice remains constant. Now, we may look upon this as a compli with such processes. Indeed, just as the infant's identification of
24 ego transformations with the mother is a percep 'provision', insistence on a kind of symbiotic or 25
THE SHADOW tual identification - and not a desire - so, too, the telepathic knowing, and facilitation from thought THE TRANS
OF THE FORMATIONAL
patient's identification does not seem to reflect to thought or from affect to thought. In these
OBJECT OBJECT
the patient's desire for us to be transformational, sessions, then, the primary form of discourse is a
{ but his adamant perceptual identification of the clarification which the patient experiences as a
analyst as transformational object. In the treatment of the nar transformative event. Interpretations which require reflective
cissistic, borderline and schizoid characters, this phase of the thought or which analyse the self are often felt to be precocious
analysis is both necessary and inevitable. demands on the patient's psychic capacity, and such people may
This stage of treatment is very difficult for the clinician since, react with acute rage or express a sudden sense of futility and
in a sense, there is no analysis of the patient taking place, and despair.
interpretive remarks may be met by a gamut of refusals: from Perhaps because psychoanalytic theory evolved from work
indifference to polite contempt to rage. One such patient would with the hysterical patient (who interpreted the analytic space as
often nod politely, say that yes he did see what I meant, indeed a seduction) or the obsessional patient (who adopted it willingly
was impressed with how accurate my remark was, but invariably as another personal ritual) we have tended to regard regressive
he would end by saying: 'But of course, you know what you have reactions to the analytic space as resistances to the working al
said is only technically correct. It doesn't help me with life ex liance or the analytic process. Yet the hysteric's sexualization of
periences, so, as such, as correct as it is I don't see what you think the transference and the obsessional's ritualization of the ana
I can do with such a remark.' He was convinced I knew how to lytic process (free dissociation?) may be seen as defences against
take care of him, and even if it was only for an hour a day, he the very 'invitation' of the analytic space and process towards
wanted me to soothe him. Analysis proper was regarded as an in regression. Thus, in the analysis of such patients, psychic ma
tellectual intrusion into his tranquil experience of me, and I was terial was readily forthcoming and one could be relatively pleased
for him a kind of advanced computer storing his information, that there was considerable grist for the analytic mill, but treat
processing his needs into my memory banks. He was waiting for ment often continued endlessly with no apparent character
an eventual session when I would suddenly emerge with the change, or was suddenly intruded upon by archaic or primitive
~oper solution for him, and in an instant remedy his life. I have material. In such cases I believe the analyst was unaware that the
....L- J. come to regard this part of his analysis as that kind of regression failure of the patient to experience the analytic situation as a re
f'\ which is a re-enactment of the earliest object experience, and I gressive invitation was a resistance. Indeed, the analytic process,
think it is folly for an analyst to deny that the culture of the ana in emphasizing the mechanics of free association and interpret
lytic space does indeed facilitate such recollections. If such re ation of the patient's defences, could often result in a denial ofthe
gressions are a resistance to the analysis of the self, they are very object relation that was 'offered' to the patient. If the ana
resistances only in the sense that the patient must resist analytic lyst cannot acknowledge that in fact he is offering a regressive
8vestigation as premature, and therefore not to the point. In the space to the patient (that is, a space that encourages the patient to
transference - which is as much to the analytic space and process relive his infantile life in the transference), if he insists that in the
as it is to the person of the analyst - the patient is relating to face of the invitation 'work' must be carried out, it is not surpris
the transformational object, that is, experiencing the analyst as ing that in such analyses patient and analyst may either carryon
the environment-mother, a pre-verbal memory that cannot be in a kind of mutual dissociation that leads nowhere (obsessional
cognized into speech that recalls the experience, but only into collusion), or in a sudden blow-up on the part of the patient, often
speech that demands its terms be met: unintrusiveness, 'holding', termed 'acting out'.
'* r:<SHADO.
OF THE
OBJECT
As I view it, then, the analyst functions as an
evocative mnemic trace of the transformational
object, because the situation will either induce a
The search for transformation and for the trans
formational object is perhaps the most pervasive
archaic object relation, and I want to emphasize
27
THE TRANS
FORMATIONAL
OBJECT
patient's regressive recollection of this early ob- that this search arises not out of desire for the
V ject relation or the variations of resistance to it: object pel" se, or primarily out of craving or
./
either denial by sexualization or obsessional ritualization, for longing. It arises from the person's certainty that the object will
example. Indeed, the transference from this point of view is first deliver transformation; this certainty is based on the object's
and foremost a transference reaction to this primary object re nominated capacity to resuscitate the memory of early ego trans
lation and will help us to see how the patient remembers his own formation. In arguing this, I am maintaining that though no
experience of it. There may be a deep regression to an adamant cognitive memory of the infant's experience of the mother is avail
demand that the analyst fulfil the promise of the invitation and able, the search for the transformational object, and nomination
function in a magically transformative manner. Or the patient of the deliverer of environmental transformation, is an ego
may have enough health and insight into regressive recollections memory.
to carry on with subsequent work in the analysis while remaining In a curious way, it is solely the ego's object and may, indeed,
in touch with more archaic aspects of the self. Indeed I believe be to the utter shock or indifference of the e son's subjective
that much of the time a patient's passivity, wordlessness or expec experience of his own desire. A gambler is ompelle gamble.
tation that the analyst knows what to do is not a resistance to any Subjectively, he may wish he did not gamble, even hate his com
J particular conscious or preconscious thought, but a recollection pulsion to do so. In Melville' Mob Dicit, Ahab feels compelled to
of the early pre-verbal world ofthe infant being with mother. Un seek the whale, even though he ee s a ienated from the source of
less we recognize that psychoanalysts share in the construction of his own internal compulsion. He says:
this pre-verbal world through the analyst's silence, empathic
What is it, what nameless, inscrutable, unearthly thing is it;
thought and the total absence of didactic instruction, we are
what cozening, hidden lord and master, and cruel, remorse
being unfair to the patient and he may have reason to be per
less emperor commands me; then against all naturallovings
~exed and irritated.
and longings, I so keep pushing, and crowding, and jamming
The transference rests on the paradigm of the first trans
myself on all the time; recklessly making me ready to do what
formational object relation. Freud tacitly recognized this when
in my own proper, natural heart, I durst not so much as dare?
he set up the analytic space and process and, although there is
Is Ahab, Ahab? Is it I, God, or who, that lifts this arm? (1851,
comparatively little about the mother-child relation within
pp.444-5)
Freud's theory, we might say that he represented his recognition
of it in the creation of the analytic set up. The psychoanalytic
process constitutes a memory of this primary relation, and the
psychoanalyst's practice is a form of countertransference, since
--
There is something impersonal and ruthless about the search for
the whale, and indeed for all objects nominated as trans
formational. Once early ego memories are identified with an ob
he recollects by enactment the transformational object situation. ject that is contemporary, the subject's relation to the object can
What Freud could not analyse in himself - his relation to his own
mother - he represented through his creation of the psycho - -
become fanatical, and I think many extremist political move
ments indicate a collective certainty that their revolutionary
analytic space and process. Unless we can grasp that as psycho ideology will effect a total environmental transformation that will
analysts we are enacting this early paradigm, we continue to act deliver everyone from the gamut of basic faults: personal,
out Freud's blindness in the countertransference. familial, economic, social and moral. Again, it is not the
28 revolutionary's desire for change, or the extrem both remembers for us and provides us with 29
THE SHADOW ist's longing for change, but his certainty that the . occasions for the experience of ego memories of THE TRANS
OF THE transformation. In a way, the experience of the FORMATIONAL
object (in this case the revolutionary ideology).f
OBJECT OBJECT
will bring about change that is striking to the aesthetic moment is neither social nor moral; it is
observer. curiously impersonal and even ruthless, as the
object is sought out only as deliverer of an experience.
CONCLUSIONS As I shall maintain in the next chapter, the aesthetic space
In work with certain kinds of patients (schizoid and narcissistic) allows for a creative enactment of the search for this trans
who exaggerate a particular object-seeking, and in our analysis of formational object relation, and we might say that certain cul
certain features of culture, I think we can isolate the trace in the tural objects afford memories of ego experiences that are now
adult of the earliest experience of the object: the experience of an profoundly radical moments. Society cannot possibly meet the
object that transforms the subject's internal and external world. requirements of the subject, as the mother met the needs of the
I have called this first object the transformational object, since I infant, but in the arts we have a location for such occasional /
want to identify it with the object as process, thus linking the first recollections: intense memories of the process of self-trans
object with the infant's experience of it. J3efore the mother is per formation.
sonalized for the inf~nt as a wh_ole obie~t, ;h~h~s f~d asa Although all analysands will experience the analytic space as
region or source of transformation, and since the infant's own an invitation to regress in the care of a transformational object,
nascent subjectivity is almost completely the experience of the and although it may be essential for the analyst to allow the
ego's integrations (cognitive, libidinal, affective), the first object patient a prolonged experience of regression to dependence (see
is identified with the alterations of the ego's state. With the in below, chapter 14), many patien!s, as I will take up in the final
fant's growth and increasing self-reliance, the relation to the part of this book, will invite the analyst into a pathological trans
mother changes from the mother as the other who alters the self to formational relation. For example, some analysands cr;;~
a person who has her own life and her own needs. As Winnicott fu~;-i~ order -t.~--~ompel the analyst to misunderstand them.
says, the mother disillusions the infant from the experience of This is a negative transformation and may represent the transfer
mother as the sole preserver of his world, a process that occurs as of a pathological mother-child relation. Of course this must
the infant is increasingly able to meet his own needs and require eventually be analysed, but even here, in the analyst's vigorous
rments. The ego experience of being transformed by the other interpretive 'work' I think the patient unconsciously experiences
remains as a memory that may be re-enacted in aesthetic experi the analyst as a generative transformational object.
ences, in a wide range of culturally-dreamed-of transformational Transformation does not mean gratification. Growth is onlyl
objects (such as new cars, homes, jobs and vacations) that prom partially promoted by gratification, and one of the mother's
ise total change of internal and external environment, or in the transformative functions must be to frustrate the infant. Like
varied psychopathological manifestations of this memory, for wise, aesthetic moments are not always beautiful or wonderful
example in the gambler's relation to his object or in the ex- occasions - many are ugly and terrifying but nonetheless pro
L!!"emist's relation to his ideological object. foundly moving because of the existential memory tapped.
In the aesthetic moment, when a person engages in deep sub
J
jective rapport with an object, the culture embodies in the arts
varied symbolic equivalents to the search for transformation. In
the quest for a deep subjective experience of an object, the artist SO-B
The Shadow
_I
of the Object
I
I
Psychoanalysis of the
Unthought Known
CHRISTOPHER BOLLAS
New York
Columbia University Press